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Maintenance Update 03 31 2008

Calculator update notes for 3-31-2008.

Financial Calculator Update 3/31/2008

The quarterly update for 3/31/2008 is a targeted update. Most of the significant changes are centered around the tax calculators, which have been updated to the preliminary 2008 tax rules and rates. There have been a few other updates, but they are limited to optional changes and enhancements. The one exception to this are new rates for 72T calculations and a review of all French Canadian calculators for spelling grammar and readability.

If you have not updated your calculators in a while you should definitely refresh your existing HTML calculator pages. All updates are cumulative, so if you start fresh with this update you will have all previous calculator updates as well. If you would like, you can review our 12/31/2007 update: 12/31/2007 Update. (The 3/31/2008 update includes all changes included in previous updates, you do not need to download any other updates to have the most current versions of all of the calculator components.)

Make sure to try our new Calculator Configurator: Calculator Configurator
This new tool lets you see exactly how you can customize the many features of our calculators.

Update instructions*:

  1. Download the latest version of your calculators from your download site, found on your update e-mail notice.
  2. Execute the Calc.exe file from your download. This is a self-extracting zip file. (Or unzip the Calc.zip file if you are using a non-windows platform.)
  3. When prompted for a directory, you may use the default of "java" or enter your own. It is recommended that you extract the update to a new directory and then move the required files to your production environment. One directory will be created with no subdirectories.
  4. Delete the contents, in your current deployment, of the KJEgui, KJEgraph and KJEcalculation directories and remove them from your server. The new version no longer requires these directories or their content.
  5. Replace your current dinkytown.jar file with the new version.
  6. Replace all files with the extension "class" with the new version.
  7. Make required changes to any HTML documents as described in this document or replace all of your existing HTML documents and re-apply your web-site custom changes.

*Please note, if you have a Servlet or other custom deployment (other than the custom formatted delivery described below), installation instructions for your package will found on your download page.

Update for custom formatted delivery**:

**Custom formatted delivery is a special option that you can add to your maintenance update service. With this option we can apply an HTML, JSP, CFM or ASP template to your calculator pages and their reports before the update is sent to you. You will then receive your calculator pages with all of your site formatting in place, without any rework to include changes that have been made to the pages deployed on your server. If you are interested in using custom formatted delivery, please contact us at (612) 331-2291, or for more information.

  1. Download the latest version of your calculators from your download site, found on your update e-mail notice.
  2. Execute the Calc.exe file from your download. This is a self-extracting zip file. (Or unzip the Calc.zip file if you are using a non-windows platform.)
  3. When prompted for a directory, you may use the default of "c:\java" or enter your own. It is recommended that you extract the update to a new directory and then move the required files to your production environment. One directory will be created with no subdirectories.
  4. Delete the contents, in your current deployment, of the KJEgui, KJEgraph and KJEcalculation directories and remove them from your server. The new version no longer requires these directories or their content.

All pages will be custom formatted to your site, no further integration or modification of the calculators is required. Please note, if your custom delivery uses Active Server Pages (ASP), Java™ Server Pages (JSP) or Cold Fusion (CFM) the respective ASP, JSP or CFM pages will be in place of your HTML documents for all calculator main pages. Report templates will remain in HTML documents (these documents are not called by your server, but instead used by the applet in the main calculator page).

    To clear your Browser's cache:

    When you test the new version of the calculators, make sure that the browser you are using uses the new files instead of any it may have in its cache. You may need to clear the browser's cache manually to ensure the new versions are loaded.

    Internet Explorer:

    Choose "Internet Options" under the "Tools" menu and on the "General" tab click on the "Delete" button under the Browsing History section. Click the top button "Clear private data now..." Click "Ok" when prompted if you wish to delete all temporary files. Close this dialog box, and all open Internet Explorer windows. Your Cache should then be cleared.

    Firefox and Netscape:

    Choose "Clear private data..." under the "Tools" menu. Check the box for "Cache" and then click the button "Clear private data now".

Master Changes (no HTML changes required, affects all calculators)

    The calculators no longer have default parameters for background color, background image, border color, border width or border type. The old parameters would have appeared in your applet as:

      <PARAM name="BACKGROUND_COLOR" value="FFFFDD">
      <PARAM name="BORDER_COLOR" value="000000">
      <PARAM name="BORDER_TYPE" value="ROUND">
      <PARAM name="BORDER_WIDTH" value="2">
      <PARAM name="BACKGROUND" value="background.jpg">

    These have been replaced with the following comment:


      <!--CUSTOM PARAMETERS-->

    By making this change, inserting custom values for all of the colors, background, images and can be done in one place without having to delete existing PARAM lines that may be difficult to locate. You are now able to use our new Calculator Configurator to generate any of the calculator's optional parameters, including those listed above. You can then search and replace the text <!--CUSTOM PARAMETERS--> with the parameters generated by the calculator configurator.

Updates that require modifications to HTML documents

  1. 1040 Tax Estimator: (Tax1040.html) has been updated for new rates and schedules for 2008. This includes changes to the definitions, and the java calculation modules. The telephone excise tax rebate was also eliminated from the from.

  2. 1040EZ Tax Estimator: (Tax1040EZ.html) has been updated for new rates and schedules for 2008. This includes changes to the definitions, and the java calculation modules. Please note that no new entry or output fields were required, but the tax tables and many of the tax computations were affected.

  3. Marginal Tax Estimator: (TaxMargin.html) has been updated for new rates and schedules for 2008. This includes changes to the definitions, and the java calculation modules. Please note that no new entry or output fields were required, but the tax tables and many of the tax computations were affected.

  4. Self Employment Tax Estimator: (TaxSelfEmployment.html) has been updated for the new rates and schedules for 2008. This includes changes to the definitions, and the java calculation modules. Please note that no new entry or output fields were required, but the tax tables and many of the tax computations were affected.

  5. 72T Calculator, 72T Distribution Impact: (Retire72T.html, Retire72Alt.html, SPRetire72T.html, SPRetire72Alt.html): The default "Reasonable interest rate" has been changed to 3.45 % to reflect 120% of the current Federal Mid-Term rate as of April 2008.

  6. French Canadian Calculators: : All French Canadian calculators have been proofed and updated for readability, grammar and spelling. It is recommended that you update your calculators if you are currently using any French Canadian calculators.

  7. Net Worth Calculator (NetWorth.html) : Real-estate has been changed to remove the hyphen.

  8. RRSP Loan Calculator (RRSPLoan.html): All places where "A RRSP" appears have been change to "An RRSP"

  9. Mortgage Compare (Canadian version only) CACompareMortgage.html: Text on Mortgage compare calculator page: changee the term "Payment" in the calculator itself to "Mortgage payment". Under "Mortgage payment", delete the reference to "(PI)".

Updates do not require changes to HTML documents

  1. Mortgage Qualifier (MortgageQualifier.html): When we calculated the annual income required to meet the purchase price entered, our formula would recalculate the loan amount based on the calculated annual income required.  This caused a small error in the calculated monthly payment. This only occurred if you choose to calculate by purchase price. MortgageQualifierCalc.class file was affected by this change.  

    Example:
    Calculated value for purchase price of $200,000, no closing costs for a 6.25% 35-year mortgage. Previous calculation would produce $1115.51 monthly. Corrected calculation $1115.45 monthly.

  2. 72T Retirement Distributions and 72T Distribution Impact (Retire72T.html, Retire72Alt.html) : The rules for the 72T distributions require that you take money out for the longer of 5 years or until you reach age 59 1/2.  Since our calculators do not have the user enter their birthdate and we assume full years. We are unable to determine if the correct year to stop would be in the year they turn 59 or the year they turn 60.  If they have a birthday before June 30th, its the year they turn 60.  If they have a birthday after June 30th its the year they turn 59.  

    Unfortunately one of the two calculators listed here used 59 and the other 60 as the cutoff.  To be consistent, and conservative, we made both assume 60.  

  3. Savings Calculator (CompoundSavings.html, CACompoundSavings.html, FRCompoundSavings.html, SPCompoundSavings): Periodic contribution and starting balance now allows amounts up to $10,000,000.

  4. Savings Goal Calculator (Savings.html, CASavings.html, FRSavings.html, SPSavings): Monthly savings and savings goal now allows amounts up to $10,000,000.